Art Scene: Cezanne's The Card Players Sold

LONDON. So,
Cezanne’s, The Card Players, has gone for some $250 million. That
could be on the low side. $300million is being thrown around. The final price
could depend on currency prices when the deal was signed - apparently last
year. It’s that sort of deal.

Most of us didn’t even know
the painting had actually sold, although it was common knowledge that something was
going on. That was last year. The then owner of The Card Players
was Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos. He hadn’t long to live and
wanted the Cezanne to go. He died before any agreement and his estate clinched
it.

The buyer? Qatar. But don’t dismiss this as
capriciousness by an oil rich Middle East royal family. This is not just
something to hang in the super yacht. This is not a display of ostentation by
the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Qatar is a very serious player in the world art market and importantly, how and
where it is displayed. Not in secret but for as many to see as possible.

Qatar is the biggest single buyer in the world
of contemporary art.

And, the emir understands perfectly where this
big buy sits in the whole history of world contemporary art. When you buy Paul
Cezanne, you’re buying more than a painting. Picasso said Cezanne was the
beginning, “the father of us all”.

So let’s get the Qataris in cultural
perspective. It has the Museum of Islamic Art, the Arab Museum of Modern Art
and next week anyone with an ounce of contemporary art credibility should be in
Qatar for the Takashi Murakami exhibition. The more than figurehead of the
Murakami show is 28-year-old Sheikha Al Mayassa
bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the daughter of the emir.

Apart from the drama of the
affair, we have to think how we value such a painting. The Card
Players was worth such a high price because it was one of the few Cezanne
in this series in private hands. The others are in museums.

But it raises the question
of valuation in this way: supposing a seventeenth century Rembrandt came to the
market? What would it go for? No one can guess but it would be a massive amount
more than the Cezanne. The sky may not be the limit in art sales, but there is
a quiet competition running.

Not too many Greek
shipowners are doing this sort of money. But watch the Gulf States,
especially Abu Dhabi, Qatar’s neighbor and probably the richest city on the
globe. The art lyric is more cheerful than the Bachmann-Turner album, Not
Fragile but the sentiment is the same as the big title, You Ain’t
Seen Nothing Yet.

So, we’re nibbling scallops
in The Ivy and I’m wearing my try-to-look-intelligent frown &
spieling all this to Connie, when she yawns. When Connie yawns, even her
best mannered friends do a mental arithmetic job on what her whiter than white
teeth must have cost. (I happen to know that it came in her second husband
alimony deal and must have cost the price of a small Cezanne).

Connie does another yawn
(make that two Cezannes) and says if the Qataris are such culture vultures how
come they financed a chunk of the hit on Libya and now want to do a similar
number on Syria? I mention that the Americans built a helipad on the site of
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Okay, we’re into moral high-grounds too
rarified for either of us. But events like The Card Players sale must
trigger all sorts of moral thoughts. Why not? That’s one of the givens of great
art. It’s about truth and deep down, we’re all a little uncomfortable
with that.

By the by, mentioning
Picasso, get a ticket to London to see Picasso and Modern British Art at
the Tate 15 February thro 15 July. Sixty Picasso’s with modern British
painters including Ben Nicholson, Wyndham Lewis, Francis Bacon and David Hockney.
Quite a show and for most of us, easier than getting to Qatar or Abu Dhabi.

Fiona Graham-Mackay, is London's newest royal portrait painter. She is also recently back from painting in the Pakistan-Afghan border. She studied at London's Royal College of Art, had a studio in Paris before returning to the UK to paint and teach in London, Spain and Italy. Her next assignments are…